


Buoy

by orphan_account



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, M/M, POV Outsider, Personal Growth, Smoking, Snapshots, Vignette, bruce goes from sad to rad, fluff disguised as angst, lots of water metaphors, uh sorta, well he's not sad by the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-31
Updated: 2014-07-31
Packaged: 2018-02-11 04:35:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2053812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Why’d we break up again?” Bruce finally speaks. It’s a question Betty is used to hearing, something that she learned was a comfort of sorts for Bruce to hear, and not so much an actual inquiry. It was like a soothing bedtime story for a restless child who pictures monsters hiding in their closet. On the rare occasions that their schedules aligned, it’d come to be something she expected to hear at least once a year.</p><p>“Because you’re You and I’m Me,”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Buoy

**Author's Note:**

> This was something that just sorta came to mind, and I haven't experimented with jumping to different points of time yet, so it was something I wanted to play with.
> 
> I'm pretty happy with how this more or less turned out, what with the continued themes throughout it. As usual, unbetad and all mistakes are mine, so feel free to point out any glaring ones.
> 
> Kudos and Comments are, as always, super appreciated.
> 
> Enjoy!

The air seemed to carry a somber weight today, Betty notes, resting easily on the rail that separated the pier from the looming waters below. Summer had just ended its warm embrace, and the cool crunch of Autumn was on the verge of creeping in, like a thought unnoticed as the leaves faded from green to yellow to orange to brown. Boats sway uneasily out on the ocean, as if they were unsure of where they were exactly supposed to be headed, and the sky above was pregnant with puffy, swollen greys.

She tugs at the sleeves of her sweater as someone sidles up next to her, perching with the kind of posture that one could only describe as self-deprecating and defensive. Betty offers a smile as she turns to him.

“Hey, Bruce,”

“Hey, Betty,” her friend returns the gesture, nodding with a weary smile. His normally tan complexion seems paled, bags under his eyes and hair greying just ever so slightly at the temples. His own sweater's drab and full of holes, a faded green mess of threads that, should she close her eyes, Betty can remember in its old glory when she’d gifted it to him all those decades ago in high school. A part of her appreciates the fact that he’d held onto it so long, but another part wishes he’d allow himself something new, something warmer.

“How’s work treating you?” She inquires, returning her gaze back out to the waves. Bruce shrugs.

“Same as always,” he takes out a cigarette, puts it to his lips, and lights it. “Pompous scholars shitting on each other’s work, only to turn around and try and claim it as their own,” there’s a ghost of a smile on his lips as he removes the cigarette to exhale, a cloud of putrid smoke filling the space before the wind sweeps it away. “You?”

“Can’t complain,” she responds, tapping her foot idly. She scrunches up her face at the smoke. “Making good progress with the new hypothesis against hydraulic fracturing,” she peers over at Bruce who chuckles and shakes his head.

“You know exactly what I like to hear,”

“I wouldn’t be a very good childhood friend if I didn’t.”

Bruce takes a long inhale of his cigarette, Betty watching vaguely transfixed as the tip burns bright orange and peels the white paper away. They stand there in silence for a few minutes, and Betty understands. She gets Bruce. Whether or not Bruce understands himself is another matter entirely.

“Why’d we break up again?” Bruce finally speaks. It’s a question Betty is used to hearing, something that she learned was a comfort of sorts for Bruce to hear, and not so much an actual inquiry. It was like a soothing bedtime story for a restless child who pictures monsters hiding in their closet. On the rare occasions that their schedules aligned, it’d come to be something she expected to hear at least once a year.

“Because you’re You and I’m Me,” she jokes, but both know the sincerity and layers of meaning behind that statement. Bruce nods, satisfied, and puffs again at his cigarette. “That, and high school relationships aren’t exactly statistically proven to last into actual marriage.” Bruce lets out a snort at that.

“Yeah,” he starts, like another thought is on the tip of his tongue. “Yeah…” he trails off, more of a note of finality in it. Bruce burns through one cigarette as they stand there, quietly taking in each other’s presence and that of the water’s, and Betty can’t help the grimace on her face as her friend pulls out another, shielding it from the wind to light it.

“Tough day?”

Puff. Exhale.

“Bruce,” she pushes.

“Betty.”

“Bruce.”

“Betty,” he peers up at her from the side of his eye, smiling in that dark way of his. Briefly, Betty remembers the soft-spoken and quietly enthusiastic boy of her childhood, but standing before her now is the version that’s been chipped away at by disappointment and adulthood and regret. It's a miracle he's still standing here at all.

“Bruce,” she tries one last time, grateful when he seems to give in, shoulders slumping.

He sucks in a deep breath, turning his head away from Betty to stare into the distance at nothing in particular. “Jay and I broke up,” he mumbles, anger buried deep in his words. Anger at himself. “She…” Puff. Exhale. “She just woke up the other day and looked at me, and something was different. I think it’s been different for a long time now.” Puff. Exhale. “But I was too stupid to see it,” he chuckles, letting his head loll forward like a puppet whose strings have gone slack. “So, she uh, she broke things off.”

Betty looks her friend over. She nods. She knows he doesn’t want pity or comfort or soothing words; just understanding. And it kills her. She has to pocket the hands that want to reach out and grab, pull, envelop. They don’t have that kind of relationship anymore. Bruce is too guarded these days. For a moment, Betty wishes she were different; wishes that she was able to be the assertive push Bruce needed. She nods again.

“You’ll be okay,” she quietly asserts, “you always are.”

Bruce shifts a step closer. Betty lets herself smile and does the same so they’re shoulder to shoulder.

“Thanks, Betty.”

Puff. Exhale.

He flicks the spent cigarette butt into the water and the pair stands there, eyeing the boats that float uneasily underneath the sickly clouds. Betty really does hope the weather will clear up soon.

 

-

 

The next time Betty catches Bruce, the bitter sting of Winter has begun to ebb, replaced instead with the mild promise of Spring. Frost still covers the ground, and the beach below the pier where they meet is smattered with clusters of grey-brown snow. While not the prettiest of seasonal transitions, she does appreciate the glimmer of warmth that’s allowed her to dress down for the day.

She rubs her hands together to chase off the slight nippiness that’d started in her fingers, and looks around at the empty pier. Few people would be crowding to a place like this today, which was why she’d been more than happy to agree to catch up with Bruce again here. In the distance she spots her friend approaching.

“You’re still wearing that old thing?” Betty says in lieu of greeting as Bruce finally ambles up, looking self-consciously down at his worn green sweater- the very same he’d donned when they last met up.

“What? It’s still good,” he says defensively, reaching habitually for his pack of cigarettes.

“And still smoking, I see,” Betty chides softly.

“Did I miss the memo for Attack Bruce Day?” Bruce chuckles, bringing the cigarette to his lips and lighting it. “Mm, last one,” he mumbles under his breath and deposits the box into the nearby trashcan.

“Excuse me for being concerned about one of the few friends I actually bother to stay in contact with,” she nudges him playfully.

“I’m honored, Miss Ross,” Bruce deadpans, but a hint of a smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. From there, they slip into easy conversation, and Betty can’t help but note the wisps of color and emotion that weave themselves into Bruce’s words today, and she sees the briefest glimmer of the young man she’d known in her past. It pulls at her heart fondly to see him like this. The color’s returned to his face despite the recent chilly temperatures, and while the bags under his eyes are still there, they aren’t nearly as dark nor strained.

“At least your co-worker doesn’t sound as bad as my new neighbor,” Bruce scoffs, taking a long drag of his cigarette. “The guy’s a maniac, I swear,” he exhales. From there, Bruce divulges into a very detailed play-by-play of this new character, explaining stories ranging from obnoxiously loud music at inappropriate hours to drunkenly shoving his way into Bruce’s apartment one night to fixing the elevator single-handedly ‘because I was bored, Bruce, and living on the sixth floor is a pain in the ass when you have to keep taking the stairs.’ Bruce had told him that the exercise would probably do him some good, considering all the calories he consumed from drinking.

While laughing at the retelling of the antics, Betty had picked up that Bruce had purposely left this mysterious neighbor decidedly nameless, instead opting for epithets such as ‘asshole,’ ‘maniac,’ and ‘mad genius.’ To any other listener, they might’ve heard just a man complaining about a terrible neighbor, but Betty knew Bruce, and there was always more going on than what met the eye.

“He sounds like a real charmer,” she snickers. Bruce rolls his eyes. Puff. Exhale.

“Don’t let him hear that, it’ll go straight to his ego.” He looks down at the nubby yellow bit of the cigarette and sighs, taking one last final pull before throwing it in the trashcan to join the box.

“Well I’d have to meet him, first,” Betty tries to bait, but instead he gives her an odd look and it’s then that Betty realizes he has no idea. Bruce Banner doesn’t know he’s made a new friend.

“Yeah, alright,” he says sarcastically, turning around to lean his back against the rail of the pier. She decides against spoiling the news and just gives him a subtle grin. “...Why are you looking at me like that? Do I have something on me?” He paws pathetically at his face and Betty can’t help the snort of laughter that escapes from her.

“You’re ridiculous, Robert Bruce Banner.”

He frowns at the use of his full name. “Okay, Elizabeth Anne Ross,” he mocks back, as if Betty were the strangest person in the world. She just chuckles and studies the beach, looking in between the clumps of dirty snow.

“Hey, look,” she points, and Bruce turns around to peer forward again. “There’s some green down there, struggling up through the sand and the pathway.”

“Oh yeah,” Bruce nods. Though they speak, there’s the sense that a quiet calm has descended upon them. They’re no longer just two people standing on a pier, but rather they’re looking into the grand expanse of what the world has to offer them, of what’s already passed. “Looks like Spring’s fighting its way up.”

Betty steals a glance at her friend, humming thoughtfully.

“Yeah, it does.”

 

-

 

“I’m seeing someone,” Bruce blurts out.

He fidgets and looks down at his hands.

“Oh?” Betty inquires. Just a second ago they’d been discussing the merits and downfalls of a steam-powered society, but throughout the entire conversation, Betty had picked up on a slight wavering of concentration on Bruce’s part, as if his words kept fumbling over their feet while trying to reach the finish line of some unmarked destination. His interjection wasn’t terribly surprising. Bruce never knew how to lead up to a topic gracefully.

Bruce slowly nods his head, looking out into the waves that are speckled with boats and happy swimmers. Below them, families and children lay out on towels underneath umbrellas, squeals of joy filling the happy cacophony of a bustling late-Spring day. He looks like he’s positively itching for a cigarette, so it’s no surprise when he reaches into his pocket and pulls out his pack, but when his hand hesitates she raises an eyebrow. Bruce lets out a dramatic sigh (and wasn’t that a new word to describe her friend?) and winds his hand back like he’s about to throw the carton out into the distance, but he thinks better of it at the last second and crams it into the overflowing trashcan beside him.

“New leaf?”

“Something like that,” he grumbles, but there’s no malice behind it. He rubs a hand awkwardly across his face. “I, uh,” he starts, and Betty hasn’t seen him this nervous in front of her since ninth grade when he’d asked her out. “I said I’d give up cigarettes if,” his voice falters and catches on the word, dropping just a fraction as he continues, “he gave up drinking.”

Ah. He. Well, it wasn’t what Betty had been expecting, but she doesn’t miss a beat.

“Sounds like he’s a good influence on you, then?”

Bruce snorts like there’s some hidden joke there and he visibly relaxes. “You’re probably the only person who’d say that, and I’m betting it’s because you haven’t met him.”

“So long as you’re not snorting coke, hiring prostitutes, or performing any other illicit activities, this guy has my approval.”

“Yeah,” Bruce finally dares to look up at her, shoulders still ready to hunch in on himself, always ready for the defense, but it’s his face that reveals more. Compared to all those months ago, Bruce’s face has changed considerably, eyes twinkling with a gentle mirth like he was sitting underneath a starry sky next to a campfire, flames warming his complexion in the most natural of ways. When he smiles, Betty finds her breath catching softly in her throat as past and present collide, creating a wholly new Bruce before her. The wear and tear of Life has left its scars, and the grey sneaking in at his temples is still there, but she’s filled with an overwhelming sense of recognition that she hadn’t even realized had been missing.

Biting her lip in quick thought, Betty reaches out for her friend, throwing an arm around his waist to tug him in tight. To her delight, he acquiesces, and even wraps an arm around her shoulders.

“I’ve missed you, Bruce,” she comments, closing her eyes as she appreciates the warmth of the sun on her face and the presence of her friend.

“Yeah, it’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

She nods into his side.

“Tell me about him.”

He swallows.

“So, you remember that pain-in-the-ass neighbor?”

Betty positively grins at that, glad that her face is buried in his arm.

“This is bound to be interesting,”

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it,” Bruce agrees, voice thick with foreign emotion.

Betty lets herself relax and listen, her friend’s words washing over her like a calming wave.

As he speaks, her eyes roam the beach, idly admiring the wildflowers that have blossomed beautifully along the pathway.

 

-

 

It’s Fall again when Betty finally reunites with Bruce. After a hectic Summer spent abroad in the United Kingdom, Betty manages to catch her breath once she’s home, and the first person she’s sure to contact is her childhood friend. He’d enthusiastically agreed over the phone, and she smiled to herself as she heard a raucous voice in the background, pestering Bruce with ‘Is that Betty? Can I say hi? Why are you always so mysterious about her? I promise I’m not going to hit on her, I’m kind of taken at the moment if you’ve failed to notice.’

Bruce gave her a put upon sigh and she could hear him shoving the other man away. “Yeah, that’d be great, Betty. Would it- uh,” he pauses, the line going silent for a moment save for the static. “Do you think… would you wanna meet him?”

“Definitely,” she grins.

“Cool,” Bruce says lamely, clearly uncertain of how to proceed, but Betty can clearly picture the happy expression on his face.

“Cool,” she agrees, mocking him slightly.

“Shut up, Betty.”

 

To Betty’s surprise, she isn’t the first one to arrive at the pier this time. As she approaches from behind, the sight of two men leaning on each other greets her, one in a red sweater who’s clearly more animated than the other who’s dressed in a new black leather jacket, hands stuffed inside the pockets. She watches them for a moment, interacting as they remain unaware to the rest of the world, the red-sweatered one pointing out into the distance at something, something only the pair of them can see.

There’s no telling if they’ll last. There’s no telling what kind of relationship they’ll grow into. There’s never any certainty about anything, really. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is here and now, Betty has learned. What matters is that Bruce is back after she wasn’t even aware he’d been missing, and the person standing beside him did that. He’s whole again. He’s alive.

She clears her throat. Bruce jumps while the other spins eagerly on his heel. From just a glance, Betty can feel the clashing mixture of charm and abrasiveness oozing off of him, dark hair sticking up in eccentric tufts as if to highlight his unpredictability. The complete opposite of brooding, shuffling, spotlight-avoiding Bruce.

“Hey there, lovebirds.”

The pair exchange glances at each other like they mutually decide that they should never be called that ever again. Bruce smirks though and turns back to her.

“Betty, this is Tony.”

“Pleasure is all mine, Miss Ross,” Tony grins, sticking out the hand not currently occupied by a coffee cup. She takes it and grins right back. “Firm handshake. She knows what she’s doing, Bruce,” he looks over at him before switching right back to Betty. “So tell me how someone as lovely as you ended up befriending a sad sack like him?” This earns a good-natured huff and shove from Bruce and Betty laughs.

“It’s quite the story,” she responds, sliding up on one side of Bruce while Tony takes the other, the three of them overlooking the pier. Calm, clear waters.

“Well, we’ve got all day as far as I’m concerned,” Tony says, while Bruce offers Betty one of the two coffees he’d been holding. Peppermint. Her favorite.

“I knew you two would get along too well,” Bruce groans as Tony hangs off of him, looping an arm through his. And just like that Bruce lights up minutely, like he’d finally resurfaced from underneath the water and Tony was his buoy, helping him stay above.

“We actually met on this beach,” Betty explains softly, breathing in the sweet, salty air.

“She saved me from drowning,” Bruce says, voice barely above a whisper.

Betty ‘hms’ in agreement and looks over at the pair, Tony’s eyes wide as they stare up at Bruce. Feeling a gaze on him, Tony glances over at Betty and she nods, a silent thanks.

He nods back; slow, understanding, pensive.

It seemed that now she wasn’t the only one who had saved Bruce from drowning.

She looks back out to the ocean before continuing, but as she starts up the thrilling story, her thoughts are briefly drawn to the boats coasting lazily on the water, their path unhurried but certain.

 

 


End file.
